Why are all cats the same size, but dogs vary greatly?

Answer 1

Cats are not all the same size, but being much smaller than the average dog the size difference between breeds isn't as apparent. Also cats haven't generally been interbred to deliberately control size, color, and other characteristics nearly as much as dogs have. Cats are much closer to their original wild ancestors than most breeds of dogs with the exception of husky's and other near-wolf breeds. This is one of the reasons that cats do much better on their own than dogs, a lot of the hunting and survival instincts haven't been bred out of them.

Answer 2

Well, there's a pretty significant difference in size between a Munchkin and a Norwegian Forest Cat, but certainly less than the different dog breeds.

The primary reason is that humans were engaging in genetic engineering by breeding for particular traits. For example, dachshunds were bred to be the way they are so they could be used for hunting burrowing animals, I believe. Greyhounds and salukis were bred to be coursing hounds, dogs that would chase after game like deer and antelope. The different requirements for these types of hunting resulted in vastly different forms of dog.

Frankly, I've always thought breeding away from the general size of the wolf ancestor was a disservice to the dogs. Too small and there aren't enough neurons for intelligence; too large and you run into basic structural problems with hips and joints.

Answer 3

Cats aren't really trainable in the way dogs are for various specific breed-specific tasks. Dogs have been bred over hundreds of years into such a variety of sizes and shapes because it *works* with dogs. Cats aren't cooperative that way. You can't breed a cat to be a great retriever, or a great herder, or whatever role one has in mind. The cat's main value to people historically, other than their odd brand of aloof companionship, is ridding the fields, ship and home of vermin, which they ALREADY did quite efficiently the way they were 10,000 years ago, without any human intercession in tinkering with their shape/size/temperament, thank you very much!
I guess the short answer is, the domestic cat's value was ALREADY realized in its original size and shape; so if it's already as ideal as it's going to get for what we need it for, there's no point trying to breed characteristics into it to better suit it physically and temperamentally for additional jobs it's not going to do anyway because it's a damn "I'll do what I want when I want" CAT, not a "desperate to please the human pack leader" dog.

Answer 4

canines are selectively bread to fill particular functional applications like hauling carts, guarding, herding, taking position holes to kill vermin, operating which incorporates carriages etc. Breeders go with particular traits they locate ideal for the function they're imagining and after quite a few centuries, the various breeds improve. Cats do not have a tremendous variety of makes use of interior an similar way so larger cats have not been selectively bread with different enormous cats to grant very tremendous residing house cats so in a good number of cases. on the different hand, cats do decision drastically in length. i have considered many who're the length of small canines, others are fairly tiny. the point is that we care a lot less about generating enormous or very small cats than we do with canines.

Answer 5

True, dogs have probably been bred more for different jobs and, therefore different sizes than cats. Even so, I don't think one will ever attain size differences between cat breeds similar to that of, say, Chihuahuas and Great Danes.
The genetic limitations for size range in Felis domesticus are just much narrower than that of Canis familiaris.

Answer 6

Domestic house cats are actually a subspecies or race of felines, Felis sylvestris catus. You see the third scientific word there. Dogs are Canis familiaris. So just a genus and species, with many different races or subspecies. There is a greater variety of animals in a given species then there is in a variety of animals in a subspecies.

Answer 7

its the inter breeding of the breeds in dogs..